Betty Badger: Media Star!

Hello Hupeople!  Betty here again.

Me (and Mary) have made it on to the BBC.  Not quite Radio 4 or TV but Three Counties Radio 

Here I am with a famous presenter called JVS .

We had so much fun visiting a place called Dun Stable where the BBC lives and I broadcast to the nation on the Andy Collins show.  I don't know why but when I walked into the studio he began to laugh.  Also the staff in their office all made a loud banging noise putting heir hands together.  Mary says this is "applause" and a good thing, even though it is noisy. 

A Huwomen called Dani did an interview with me on the grass and made me pose while she took took loads and loads of pictures.  I thought she had a Badger Cub sitting on top of her camera and I tried to make friends with it, but she told me that it was, in fact, a furry microphone.  Here is Dani and me trying to be chums with the microphone.

DEFRA was so worried about my appearance on the BBC that they made a statement to be read out on the programme.  So did the NFU!!!  Mary said it was rehashed poppycock. I wish she wouldn't use such complicated words.  Anyway, I was on twitter lots and she told me that I was a media fenomenonenonenon.....  I am not really sure how to spell or end that confusing word so perhaps we should say "Betty Badger is a MEDIA STAR".

I've had 2 trips to DEFRA and the Home Office since I last wrote.  In my new routine I spend a couple of hours at the staff entrance where I meet many old friends and then I go to the front when the lunchtime crowds calm down a bit.  Lots of important people come to the front But some of them are not very bright. One Huwoman had never heard of the Badger Kill Cull.  She thought I was an illegal immigrant seeking justice.  There are security men at the front entrance who are funny and kind even though one of them did call me a Beaver!.  

The important people drink a lot of coffee and are in and out of the building to the coffee shop across the road with (reusable) coffee cups all the time.  I guess that's why they walk and talk so fast. One Huwoman who works in Caffe Nero has offered me a free Coffee next time I visit.


One good thing about being a badger just hanging around is that people say things and assume that I don't understand because I am a Badger. Well, I look and I listen and I have a message for Mr Gove. Did you know, Mr Gove, that some people are very unhappy that you have moved your DEFRA family into their new home in Seacold House?  One Home Office Human pointed at me and said, "That Badger is one of the many downsides of having Michael Gove moving in here"!!!  That isn't very nice. 

I met lots of interesting Hupeople yesterday.  One man said that the Home Office was "a nest of snakes" and tried to encourage me to storm their security.  I said that Betty doesn't like trouble.... and storming isn't really my style.... I am not too keen on meeting a load of snakes either.  This is a nest of snakes and/or the Home Office.

 

Several kind Hupeople tried to give me money, but I didn't take it as I can't eat it.  Another Human asked if he could buy one of my cubs.  I told him that they were my babies and I could not bear to be parted from them. 

I also met hundreds of Hucubs in grey uniform who were walking in a line down the road..  I wear my name on my back and they all started calling out Betty Badger, Betty Badger Betty Badger....  I really did feel like a Celebrity.  I hope that some of them will read my blog and understand why I stand there and then talk to their teachers and their parents about how cruel the Badger Kill Cull is.   I also met some little cubs in wheeled carts and they loved me and laughed. .  I did scare a couple of babies though and they began to cry...

I had one difficult moment when I met a man who had suffered from bovine TB (bTB) and this caused him to have a lot of operations.  He said he wasn't very fond of Badgers because of that.  So, even though he was quite angry, we had a chat and I explained to him that bTB is a disease of Cows, not Badgers, and the disease is being moved to new areas by moving infected Cattle around the country.  And, yes, sometimes these infected Cows give it to Badgers and other wild Creatures and Pets and so it spreads. I said that we needed to use the better (more expensive) test on Cows to find out if they are ill before they move them and also invest in vaccination rather than killing.  I think we understood each other better at the end of our chat.

I did see Mr Gove twice today and he waved at me, but he was moving so fast that I didn't have time to talk to him and invite him to my picnic.  Here is our Badger family having a picnic in the sun outside the Home Office/DEFRA .

I got something called a "wrap" from Pret a Manger but it wasn't very nice; Hupeople do eat some strange stuff. So instead we ate the grass and dug up a few worms.  I hope they don't mind the damage to their nice green grass, but the worms were buried deep after the dry weather.  

That's all the news for now.  

Night Night from Betty Badger - Media Star & Celebrity

🐾✮🐾✯🐾✭